PRINTING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS

Posted by Leslie Fayre on June 1, 2009

At home or at a lab?

When you're ready to print your digital pics, what's better – doing it at home on your own colour printer, or sending them out to a lab like kwikpix.ca? Well, that depends on a few things, including:

the type of printer you have at home
your budget
your creative requirements
your archival requirements (i.e. how long do you want to be able to keep the photo without the colours fading or degrading?)

If you have a general-purpose printer with non-archival dye based inks, you will probably want to outsource the work to a lab. That way you'll ensure better photo quality and longevity. However, if you have a higher-end photo printer that uses pigment-based inks, you can certainly exercise your creativity by printing at home. Today's home printers offer a variety of inks, paper surfaces and software tools for photographers.

In terms of budget, if you're just looking to print basic 4x6 photos, it may actually be more expensive to do it yourself. Many photo labs offer very low prices (kwikpix.ca starts at just 10¢ a print) for basic prints, which can work out cheaper than buying the paper and the inks (which can be remarkably expensive) yourself.

However, if you've got the right equipment, printing at home offers tremendous creative opportunities. Just as you experiment with various image manipulation and camera capture techniques, you can also play with paper and texture. Camera and art stores sell a wide range of papers, each offering a particular look and feel. And why stop with paper? Here's an interesting experiment; buy a small piece of fine silk from a fabric store, securely mount it to a light card stock, then produce your print on the silk.

If you've got a good printer, the sky is the limit … providing the medium is no thicker than your printer will accommodate.

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